Cataloguing System for Art Work - Part 2
This is part 2 of a two-part article on cataloguing your art work, from an artist's point-of-view.
In Part 1 of this two-part article on Cataloguing your Art work, I went over the bits of information you should consider collating about each finished piece of art which you create.
In this part, I want to show the system I've made to facilitate my art cataloguing and explain some of the benefits which can be derived from such a system. It's focussed on painting and drawing but it could probably be adapted to other forms of artwork.
The system is a custom web application supported by a SQL database backend which I run locally, although it could be hosted anywhere and provide easy access via a web browser.
Main catalogue screen.
Starting off.
Top half of the Catalogue screen.
The painting or artwork information is basically entered on a single page screen. It can have zero to many work tasks which are just the separate pieces of work required to produce the finished art work. The screen will grow longer as more and more work tasks are added.
Any fields in the screenshots which have a greyed-out background are automatically calculated/generated by the system.
1: Click this button to create a new art work catalogue entry.
2: Navigate forwards through the catalogue.
3: Navigate backwards through the catalogue.
4: Save the catalogue entry when you are finished editing it.
5: Delete the catalogue entry.
6: Print the Painting Label for this art work.
7: Print the Certificate of Authenticity for this art work.
8: Print the Catalogue page for this art work.
Bottom half of the Catalogue screen.
When I'm planning a painting, I'll typically know the size of it and its title - that, and a unique id is about all that's required to get it into the system. Once that is saved, I can add any additional information to it as I go along and I can start adding any work tasks.
Material costs and suggested pricing is calculated automatically by the system.
1: Click this button to add a new work task to this art work.
2: Delete all the work tasks for this art work.
3: Edit an individual work task.
4: Delete an individual work task.
Work Task popup.
When I'm doing any work on a piece, I just note the start and end time so that I have the hours spent on that task. Adding the work task to the painting takes only seconds but it is key to several of the system features which we'll see later.
This is the information required for an individual work task. The description can be as brief or as detailed as you want - it's sometimes useful to look back and see if there are any notes accompanying particularly difficult or troublesome tasks.
Update as you go.
As you progress through the making of a painting, adding work tasks and completing other information such as the paints you used, and taking a photograph of the art work, provide the information for pricing and the Painting Label and the Certificate of Authenticity. If its an oil painting and you are setting it aside for 6 to 12 months to dry properly, you can add a work task for varnishing with a date which is 6 to 12 months in the future (and leave it not done) and the system will remind you of these future tasks and highlight them when they are due or are overdue.
A word on Pricing.
Pricing an artwork is a very contentious area as the price is dependent on many nebulous factors such as the fame (or otherwise) of the artist, the prestige of the selling establishment (if applicable), the current market trends, if its part of a larger collection, etc. If the artist is not well known, other factors such as the size of the painting have greater influence, as might the subject matter and complexity of the piece.
My pricing model works primarily on size and it calculates it based on time and materials, by the square centimetre and by the linear centimetre and then provides an average. It does this, based on three levels - a low, medium and high value level; so three prices are produced on each level which are averaged and then incidental costs can be added e.g. shipping and taxes, which results in three target prices - a low, medium and high value price.
These are just guidelines or markers and the system isn't perfect. No buyer is going to thank you for taking longer to paint something but the average of the three prices helps even it out a bit. At the end of day, the price is what someone is willing to pay, and what you are willing to let it go for, but the guide prices should help prevent you from making a loss.
The Rates screen is where all the required rates are input and once these are in; they provide the basis of pricing each painting.
1: Add a new Rate
2: Edit a Rate
3: Delete a Rate
It can take a bit of adjusting of rates to ensure that the prices produced between time and materials and square centimetre of linear centimetre are not wildly different, otherwise it can skew the average.
Rates screen of Catalogue system.
Dashboard screen.
The dashboard is one of the places where we can see some insights into my painting habits and this is powered by the work tasks.
Upcoming Events: These are work tasks which have to be done in the future or, if they are highlighted in red, are overdue.
Insights: Shows the last day I did some painting (this is to guilt-trip me into doing more) and the total number of hours painting this week. 'Painting' is usually painting or drawing - in fact anything entered into a work task. I don't include canvas or canvas panel preparation time in this, as this is usually incorporated into the material cost element.
Work Summaries: For each year, the system calculates, from the work tasks, how many hours I've spent on each of the painting genres listed, and gives a total overall, so I can see, year-on-year what I've spent my time on and how it compares to previous years. (I know, I need to paint more!)
Pricing Estimate System
So what if you're asked to provide a quote for a painting? Where do you start? Well you could look back through your catalogue for a similar type and size of painting and use the pricing data from that.
However, the Pricing Estimate System just requires a height and width.
Pricing estimate screen.
1: The average minutes per square centimetre is the average from all the paintings (drawings are not included) in the catalogue and is the time it is likely to take you to paint a square centimetre of canvas. If you get faster over time then this average will decrease slightly; if you work on more complex paintings then this will increase slightly. Over many paintings and many years this is likely to be a reasonable average.
2: The Pricing Factors are all taken from the Rates page entries and are shown here for information. The minimum drying days which I've set to 14, is the minimum time I've allocated to letting the painting dry for shipping purposes only (not varnishing).
3: Clicking this button estimates the Material Costs, the Total Time in hours that the painting should take and when the painting should be ready for shipping.
4: Clicking this button produces the three-level pricing guide for this specific painting.
Notes screen.
The Notes screen is just a list of notes, in a convenient place, to help remind me what sort of information might be required, particularly for those fields which have not been filled in or are not updated regularly.
Printed elements
The printed elements are all designed to produced PDF's of appropriate sizes. These are accessed via the icons at the top of each catalogue page.
Painting Label
The Painting Label is something I've designed (size is A5) and is affixed to the back of canvas panels (or can be included with a stretched canvas) and provides information on the canvas substrate, the ground, paints used and the varnish used (if any). This is useful for caring for the longevity of the painting.
Painting label.
Certificate of Authenticity.
Certificate of Authenticity
The Certificate of Authenticity has been designed as Letter sized and can be printed on certificate paper stock.
Art Catalogue Page
The Art Catalogue Page is a print of most of the information on the Catalogue screen (doesn't include all the individual work tasks.)
Art Catalogue page.
I hope this insight into my art cataloguing system demonstrates the benefits of having such a system to hand in your day-to-day art making process.
If you have any questions or queries, please put a comment down below.
